Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.-Isaiah 12 2-3

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

06-18-12

June 18, 2012

"How many summers, how many winters?!"

Hey there everybody!

Had a crazy experience this morning. My district leader, Elder Hill,
and I were just talking this morning when he asked where I was from. I told him
Los Alamos, New Mexico and he asked me "Oh, hey? So you live around the
lab?" And it just blew my mind today to here the phrase "the
lab" since I haven't heard anyone say for about a year or so! As it turns
out, he's from Albuquerque and had visited Los Alamos before. Crazy, huh? Was a
fun bit of deja vu.

Did ya'll happen to get a hold of the Williams? I dunno if it's
plausable at all or not, but I have this little dream that ya'll could come to
their mission homecoming and just sit and talk awhile about the mission. They
lived in the town where I served for about 8 months, so talking to them about
their experience will give you a good idea of what I went too. That'd be so
dang cool if you, Mom and Dad, served a mission in Russia like the Williams
too! Wouldn't that be crazy? I'd totally teach you some fun Russian phrases
before you'd come out. Ah, good times! :)

Stuff is going pretty well here in Marks! Our main investigator is
making a lot of very good progress. Scary experience happened this past week
with her though because of how discouraged she feels. She has a pretty rough
life; she can barely walk, has awful "kvartiarants" (I don't know
what it's called in English, just people she's rented a couple of rooms to in
her apartment) who are some pretty dang crude guys, and a 2 and a half year old
kid who's a little rascal (she's a bit worried for him too, I think, since he
doesn't even talk yet, just makes babbling noises). In the meeting we had with
her the day after we sang songs and talked to her about the Plan of Salvation
and the ways that God can help us overcome our troubles in life. It's so cool
to see in the people the light that shines in their eyes and in their faces as
they learn about the Gospel and feel the Spirit. We were also able to help her
and her 2 year old get to Church and she absolutely loved it. She told me,
after Relief Society, "Why aren't you advertising this Church? People were
telling me that you are godless cultists but once you step into this place you
just feel good." So, we explained more about our work as missionaries to
her and what we do. The idea is circulating a bit around of creating some kind
of activity and advertising it for people to come and check out. We're not
quite sure in what way to go around it, but we'll think of something I bet.
Sure would be nice to help people realize we're not scary.

I was talking to Elder Stoddard the other day of how cool it is to
serve in a little branch where there's 15 people and we're the President's two
councilers. Sure isn't the easiest thing to do in life, but it brings a lot of
experience and perspective into the growth of the Church. I wonder a lot of
times how they solved the problems that arose in the early Church, since I
think it mirrors Marks a bit. There used to be over a hundred people who came,
but it was in part beause the Curch was new and popular in town, and the
baptisms probably weren't as monitored as well as they should have been.
Overtime, people lost the craze and didn't want to keep being Mormon, so a lot
left the Church over time. There were quite a number of excommunications (which
I also wonder if they were done correctly since they were done mostly by
missionaries), so I dunno. Seems like it all started and progressed a bit
sloppily. So, we've got a strong little core of the Church, which may also be
suffering a bit too. Not many pay tithing and two ladies who have already been
to the temple don't stay, usually, for Relief Society but rather go to the
Russian Orthodox Church to drink tea and lay candles in front of icons. Argh!
But, we'll work something out to help out these members. I think as they help
us they remember the promises they made at baptism and help in getting others
to know of the Gospel they themselves do better.

Oh, I was just reminded. I asked a ton of people about Russia Day,
and it's apparently they Independence Day...but everyone I asked didn't know
from whom they were independent. Oh well. Not the biggest holiday here in
Russia it seems!

We're going to have exchanges on Thursday and Friday, so it'll be a
kind of birthday celebration. Good times! I just barely figured out how to make
the most scrumptious home-made brownies, so I think I'll probably make a couple
of really good batches of those on or around my birthday to eat and share with
people here Woo!

Thanks for the support and the love from every one of you. It's
always a little weird to think that you're all on the other side of the world,
but how no matter what, in a nice way, you're always with me in your letters
and prayers. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyways, that'll wrap it up for this week I think. Ya'll be good
now! Eat your veggies and make a cake and eat it for me there back in the
States!